


List of Unsatisfactory Options

by Jemisard



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-13 00:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jemisard/pseuds/Jemisard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock had a spat and now John won't come home. Sherlock's determined he will, one way or another.</p><p>Written for this prompt: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/575.html?thread=442175#t442175</p>
            </blockquote>





	List of Unsatisfactory Options

Generally speaking, Sherlock was quite happy to fight with John. He enjoyed arguing, and even though John was nearly always wrong, Sherlock liked the way he stuck to his gun on moral and social issues regardless of how much Sherlock tried to make him see reason.

John would get flushed and growl and wave his hands sometimes and then make tea in the single most aggressive way Sherlock had ever witnessed tea being made in. Sherlock would fling himself onto the couch and mangle his violin playing while John staunchly read the news and pretended that the cacophony wasn’t going on next to him.

However, last Monday had not gone like that.

It wasn’t like he had said anything that John hadn’t. At least, not to begin with. Harry  was a drunk and it was for the best that John minimised contact with her until she was ready to face her problem. He had just said so himself as he hung up from the phone. Sherlock didn’t like the way she upset John so much with her refusal to face basic facts about her well being and her addiction.

Sherlock should know. He had been there.

But John got upset about that. Said she was his sister and he to help her because she had no one else. That she had no one else because she had abused them while drunk, refused help and consistent antagonised everyone who might have assisted her was a  fact , it wasn’t up for dispute.

But John still yelled at Sherlock that he was a fine one to talk about antagonising and ostracising people with the way he behaved.

In hindsight, it had been temper that led him to say that his problems were actually medical and not just self inflicted pretence. It wasn’t really accurate and it had been unnecessarily vindictive.

John had left without another word.

Sherlock had felt completely justified. For about twenty minutes.

That had been Monday.

Now it was Wednesday and John was still not talking to him.

He had tried. He’d texted him on Monday night to say that his temper was cooled off. And that he was bored. And that there was no tea. And no bread. Could John get bread? And tea? And a new packet of nicotine patches. And never mind, he found his stash of boxes from last fortnight when he thought he was going to have a tough case and then the prat confessed.

John never replied.

He texted John the next day eighty two times. He texted Sarah and told her to tell John to message him back but she just told him to leave her alone. She wasn’t his biggest fan, he suspected.

He called the office and was told John wasn’t taking calls while he was consulting. So he called John’s direct line but he just got hung up on and then the phone was engaged. He called his mobile and that was on voice bank. He told John to call him back.

Today he had tried employing Mrs Hudson into luring John back to the flat, but she said she was too busy to sort out their lovers’ tiffs and she’d be back that night.

Sherlock now lay on the couch, fingers steepled in front of him and staring at the back of his eyelids, willing the nicotine patches to give him the rush of insight he needed.

He had an idea of where to start. He would pack John a bag of his belongings. Clean clothes, his laptop, even his dratted cane and he would ask Mrs Hudson to take them into the surgery for John. While there, she could suggest that it would be best for John to return to the flat. He would make sure of it, he could cause enough disruption that she would ask John to come back just to get some peace.

He growled and leaned over the couch, grabbing another patch and slapping it onto his upper arm. That wouldn’t work. John was as likely to tell her to call the police as agree to come home.

Perhaps a particularly gruesome crime would come up. He could tell Lestrade to go and get John because he needed his medical expertise. Then John would have to interact with him.

But there was a good chance John would refuse and make him work with Anderson. He didn’t want to work with Anderson. And it relied on a gruesome crime happening and short of orchestrating one himself, he couldn’t rely on that.

And John would get really angry if he orchestrated one.

He lay there thinking for a while long over the possibilities. He texted John another four times to tell him to stop being stubborn and just come home. It wasn’t likely to work, but he had at least tried now.

Sometime after the sun had come up and he had slapped on another patch because he was getting hungry and the nicotine would kill that craving, he thought about going to the surgery himself. Take in some of John’s belongings, demand to see him and tell him that even if he, a doctor, was indifferent to the plight of his starving flatmate, Sherlock was considerate enough to bring John clean clothes, his laptop and his cane that he didn’t really need but made him feel better.

He was tired by then. But he still didn’t know how to make John come home. As infuriatingly, he didn’t know why it was so important that John come home but it  was . He needed him to come home.

The headache being back in full force, he slapped on a patch to try and and stave it back. He had to work this out and he just couldn’t. John needed something to make him come back.

Maybe, he could refuse to let John have his clothes. Change his pin, deny him account access and make him come home. Sherlock would take them out to dinner somewhere and the next day, John would contact the bank, get his pin reset and he’d never be any the wiser.

That had promise. 

He would think on it while he showered.

He stripped off his clothes in the bathroom and then hit the floor on his knees as his stomach seized, twisting and cramping violently. He gasped for breath and gagged, heaving himself to the toilet before he was sick, throwing up bile and stomach acid and nothing else. The cramping didn’t stop, it was almost like withdrawal all over again, cramping and throwing up and headachy and dizzy...

He looked at his arms and cursed. Seven patches was too many. His body couldn’t handle that much nicotine. He tugged them off weakly, struggling to find the force to pluck them from his skin.

He needed John.

The irony was not lost on him.

He staggered to hands and knees, crawling to his clothing and trying to find his phone. The pockets were infuriatingly complex, the folds of clothing foiling his every movement. He retched again, but nothing happened, his stomach already empty.

He got it, hitting speed dial for John as his arms gave out and forced him to the floor.

The phone picked up.

“Help,” he whispered. “Please.”

He closed his eyes, listening to his name being yelled.

He opened them to find that he was lying in the bath, with his head elevated out of the warm water and John sitting on a stool, watching him closely. He licked his lips dryly and John held up a finger to stop him speaking.

“You are an idiot.”

Sherlock blinked.

“You are the most clever, brilliant idiot I have ever met. You could have killed yourself with that many nicotine patches. It’s only your sickeningly high tolerance and the good fortune that you’ve thrown up a lot that’s stopped it becoming serious. You could have  died , Sherlock!”

This anger was new as well. It was heated and filled with a lot of fear. Fear for him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”

John sighed and put a new cool cloth over his brow and eyes. “Why couldn’t you have just said that Monday night?”

Huh.

Sherlock made a mental note to add “apologising” to the list of ways to get John to come back home. In case he ever needed that list again.


End file.
